Linda Headrick, MD, MS is Senior Associate Dean for Education and Faculty Development at the
University of Missouri (MU) School of Medicine in Columbia, Missouri. The professor of internal
medicine joined MU’s faculty in 2002 after 17 years at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, where she became one of the first to introduce medical education to the concept of
continuous quality improvement. At MU, Dr. Headrick leads a dean’s office team that supports
all aspects of medical education, from pre-admissions through CME. In that role, she has
enhanced the medical school’s internationally recognized curriculum by emphasizing quality
improvement and teamwork.
Dr. Headrick also provides leadership to the University’s Center for Health Care Quality and MU
2020, an ongoing initiative for training medical students and physicians to provide patientcentered care. Nationally, Dr. Headrick works closely with the Institute for Healthcare
Improvement (IHI), a Boston-based international leader in the improvement of health care. In
2009, the IHI appointed Dr. Headrick as the faculty leader for “Retooling for Quality and Safety,”
an initiative supported by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. In the 2009-2010 academic year, six
competitively-selected School of Medicine and School of Nursing partners (Case Western
Reserve University, Johns Hopkins University, Penn State University, University of Colorado,
University of Missouri-Columbia, and University of Texas-San Antonio) developed and
implemented innovative methods to integrate health care improvement and patient safety
content into the required curricula for future nurses and physicians.
Dr. Headrick received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from MU in 1977 and a medical degree
from Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., in 1981. She completed a residency in internal
medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1985 and received a master’s degree in
epidemiology and biostatistics from Case Western Reserve University in 1998.